All Is Bright
by Francesca Wayland
Summary: In December, 2013, two dead people live again for one night.
1. Chapter 1

Under a darkening sky and a gentle snowfall, the woman once known as Irene Adler stood before a formerly grand, desolate block of mansion flats. The air was chilled, but she was warmed by the blood pounding through her in the familiar staccato that always preceded her reunion with the man once known as Sherlock Holmes. It was provoked by a heady mix of anticipation and outright fear and the effect never lessened, no matter how many times they returned to one another, and regardless of whether their separation had been brief or lengthy.

That morning she had received a text from a blocked number with a location, and only a location, but she had understood the inherent invitation and who was behind it. For Sherlock Holmes it was as overt an admission of need and sentiment as she could expect, but she knew that she could take it as such nonetheless.

And as she always did when she received such texts she had cancelled or rescheduled all pre-existing plans and had purchased a flight, without hesitation or any concern for the expense of a last-minute booking. She recognised that her former self might've viewed such actions with derision and alarm, but in this one, unique way she wasn't the same person she had been.

In one form or another power dynamics had been the defining factor in all of Irene's other interpersonal dealings, and if she'd detected the slightest threat to her supremacy, whether it were her own growing attachment or the other person's attempt to push for emotion intimacy, she had immediately terminated contact.

It was so different with Sherlock. Granted, there was ever an undercurrent of competition and challenge that hummed and sparked between them, but it was within the context of absolute certainty that they were equals and shared a singular understanding. Irene viewed it as the electricity that powered their relationship, rather than the engine itself. They might never verbally acknowledge the actual nature of their sentiments for one another, but then to borrow a turn of phrase from Sherlock: to do so would be dull, _obvious_. They expressed themselves in less convention ways, such as the time Sherlock had set the precedent of each of them flying across the world for the other, when he had travelled all the way to Pakistan those several years ago.

She took a bracing breath, tossed her head, squared her shoulders, and ran a smoothing palm down the length of her heavy bouclé wool coat, which concealed beneath it a sheath the exact shade of the gathering drifts around her.

She knew that it was brash to look so much like Irene Adler—_herself_—again, particularly in a location this close both in proximity and culture to Western Europe. Yet in her relatively staid present life she craved the occasional dose of risk-induced adrenaline, and even a cheap shot such as this would suffice. She'd always had a bit of a self-destructive streak, and just because she was no longer going by Irene Adler didn't mean that her essential personality had changed. She still had that reckless daring about her, and she _liked_ that, and liked that about herself.

She had to admit that it wasn't only the risk of recognition that caused her pulse to throb in her veins. It was also the anticipation of Sherlock seeing her as he had originally known her, as she had been when they had originally started this intermittent but enduring dance of theirs. She was eager to see him react to her, and almost more eager to see that self reflected through him and back to her again like a prism, and in the full spectrum of colour it would project.

It wasn't the original garment, but a replica she'd had made out of an inferior fabric. It occurred to her that Sherlock would see that in an instant, and she wondered with dismay if he would think she was chasing some faded, past glory that was impossible to recapture. But if he did perhaps he would also understand it, so maybe that was all right.

When she had left the original dress behind it wasn't the only once-prized possession she'd had to abandon; she could only take the barest of assets along with her in her new life as a fugitive, and that excluded both property and goods. Still, high-end items and a prestigious address were nothing next to the career and persona she'd lost—or the security to misbehave without consequence.

She guessed that the new mistress in Kate's life, because there was inevitably a new mistress in Kate's life, was enjoying the couture she'd left behind, if Kate had been inclined to keep it at all. Perhaps she had opted to sell it all out of bitterness, especially since Irene had vanished in the middle of the night without any explanation. That had been part necessity, but in truth it had mostly been unwillingness to admit to Kate—who had always viewed her as so flawless and infallible—that Irene had lost everything in manner that was almost axiomatically a Shakespearian tragedy. She couldn't look into the eyes of someone who had once placed her on a pedestal and see the disappointment and disillusionment consume the admiration, not for a second time that night. Nor could she watch Kate realise that every promise Irene had ever made about how she would provided for Kate was forfeit, and all because of the one thing Irene had withheld from her: genuine sentiment. So she had only left a note that read, _It's for the best, all of this is yours now_," and ended with a spontaneous red imprint of her lips. That had been her last act as Irene Adler.

The thought of her former companion caused the unwelcome sort of hitch in her breathing, but despite the dress she wore this was a time for moving forward, not looking back.

She pushed against a pair of massive etched metal doors and entered a dark reception, then rode the groaning wrought-iron lift to the top level. As it shuddered upwards floor by floor and she took in the dilapidated splendour of the once-glorious Beaux Arts building, she attempted not to consider it a metaphor for herself and her own situation.

_Forward_, she reminded herself scathingly.

When the lift juddered to a stop she pulled back the pitted golden grille to reveal a single door, which opened before she'd even stepped out; the grind of machinery had announced her presence.

Her first reaction was a small gasp of attraction, and her second was a low, appreciative laugh. She wasn't the only one who looked different, or more to the point, the _same_.

He wore a slim-fitting pale grey shirt, dark trousers, and his hair was brushed over his forehead in a tumble of waves rather than shorn short or scraped back in the severe style she'd seen him wear when it grew longer. She was amazed at how much seeing him looking so himself caused her heart to skip a beat and a buzz to settle in her abdomen as if she'd just downed a large dose of champagne.

In turn he took in her form with a neutral, scrutinising expression, but when he raised his eyes back to hers one corner of his mouth tightened upward, and his eyes lit with humour and attraction.

"Ms Adler, I presume," he said in a low drawl, and her small smile blossomed into a sharp grin at his instant understanding. All her fears were assuaged at once, as they always were when she and Sherlock actually reunited and their natural chemistry and compatibility banished her apprehensions.

"Mr Sherlock Holmes," she replied with clear relish for the name, and he opened the door wider for her. Looking into his eyes she slid past him through the narrow gap, and deliberately brushed his chest and upper arm with her breasts.

Despite the fact that there were still at least four layers of fabric between them she was rewarded with an almost-inaudible intake of air through nostrils, and as she made her way into the room she wore a look of blazing satisfaction.

Irene knew that nowhere in the world did any dataset, file, or electronic memo indicate that either she or Sherlock Holmes were still alive, and yet in this forgotten penthouse there was an excess of proof. A hitch in breathing, cheeks flushing with colour, a quick swallow – these were all testaments to the fact that although outside of these walls they might go on only surviving, here, now, if only for a little while, they would live.


	2. Chapter 2

Sherlock shut the door with a soft click and leaned back against it, the humour fading as he looked at her with what others might find an indecipherable expression.

She was accustomed to this part by now. She was always able to set aside her lone wolf mentality before she even laid eyes on Sherlock, but he had more difficulty with it. Their first few moments of togetherness were still slightly stilted as he took the time to mentally and emotionally recalibrate, and relax the guard that was so essential to keeping him alive, and the minimum one step ahead of Moriarty's operatives. She _had_ noticed that that taciturn awkwardness grew fainter and of a shorter duration ever time.

He used his deductive abilities to segue from the cerebral to the more sentimental, to try to see where she had been and what she had been doing while they'd been apart. Since he still always had trouble reading her she had come to create intentional clues about her whereabouts, as a subtle and tailor-made reintroduction: an orange blossom scent evocative of Sevilla, a type of kohl eyeliner only available in Tunisia, a tiny seashell and a few grains of sand in the pocket of her coat from a beach in her home state of New Jersey (although he hadn't gotten _that _far in his deduction). If he realised that she did all this on purpose, he never said.

But today it was all about _who_, not where, she had been – and who they both still were, when they were with each other.

She continued to sense his penetrating gaze on her as she crossed the room to set her handbag down on the bed and shed her coat, but she ignored it for the time-being in order to take stock of the one-room flat. At one point this must have been part of a greater, grandiose, suite of rooms but at some point someone had chopped the flat into smaller bedsits, before the building was all but abandoned. She eyed the water-soiled pressed plaster ceiling, flaking and stained walls, and chipped brass bed, but she noted with interest and a slight swooping sensation in her abdomen that the bed linens appeared crisp and pristine.

She turned around to make a suggestive comment, but the words died in her throat when her eyes locked with Sherlock's. In the moments that she had faced away from him he apparently had let those down those fortifications, because she had caught him looking at her with a look of need that bordered on desperation. She knew that the look wasn't just about her, that for both of them this was about their own egos as well. Just as she had needed someone in the world to see and understand that she was – still – Irene Adler, he would need someone with whom he could be Sherlock Holmes, and who understood all that that meant. No one could understand the fullness of that better than she could, and vice versa.

And Irene knew just how to jumpstart the process of his mental transition even more.

Without hesitation she took the several steps across the scratched and gouged wooden floorboards to where he stood, slid her hands over his shoulders and around his neck, then hauled him down to kiss him.

His posture remained rigid against the door for an instant, but then he relaxed and leaned forward so that their kiss could deepen. His instincts were there (_oh were they ever_, she thought with anticipation), he just needed to remember that he could trust himself with her, at least in the ways that mattered to them.

Perhaps it was the relief of reuniting, or the thrill the came with dropping all façades, or perhaps seeing her looking so _herself_ again was having just as much of an effect on him as he was on her, because the kiss did become especially combustive. His hands pressed hard into her lower back and the spot between her shoulder blades, pulling her against him close enough that she could feel his rapid heartbeat even between several layers of clothing.

After several heated moments of becoming physically reacquainted he pulled away with a short sigh, and by the time she'd blinked her eyes open again, he was already hallway across the room.

She felt a bit thrown, but chalked it up to him still adapting after their months without interaction.

"I bought wine," he said, and she was gratified to hear that he still sounded slightly breathless. "The shop sommelier recommended the Beaucastel."

He gestured to a decanted bottle of a Chateuneuf du Pape varietal on a battered but still beautiful cabinet, and her eyebrows rose involuntarily.

"Is _that_ why you're looking so respectable, you had to pop in to the high-end wine shop?"

He looked awkward again for a moment, as if uncertain if she were being mocking or sincere.

"Partly."

"What's the occasion?" she asked, gesturing to the bottle with a dart of her eyes.

She scanned her memory to determine if this day were the anniversary of anything, then was both amused and disconcerted at the direction of her thoughts. Would Sherlock even retain that kind of knowledge when he needed to save so much other important data, now more than ever? At once point she'd have been inclined to think not, but she'd come to realise that when it came to her there were hidden and surprising depths to him.

"No occasion," he said. "Besides the obvious," he amended, but she sensed that he was deflecting.

She was distracted from that thought by a glint of light off the gracious curve of wood, and she turned to see something that both bent her lips into a small smile and made her heart skip a beat.

"Don't tell me you've had Mycroft send you this!" she said, moving towards the violin resting on a sideboard.

"Of course not," he dismissed with a scoff, but she still met his look with a raised brow, and he sighed.

"I'm borrowing it."

She continued to look at him, unblinking and expectant.

"It won't be missed, it's from the Conservatorio di Verdi and it's only their eighth-best loaner. Anyhow, I'll return it in a few days."

She felt laughter bubble up through her chest and didn't try to suppress it.

He gave her another wary look, then asked, "What?"

"Nothing," she said, feeling unadulterated affection for him warming her. "You're just the world's poshest squatter."

He didn't join her in laughing but his expression did soften, before it became grave again.

"It wasn't some gratuitous whim. I needed to play, it helps me think."

She wasn't convinced that it was as simple as that. She glanced between him in his tailored clothes and the instrument, and then back again, and had a sudden, achingly familiar realisation.

"You miss it," she said. She knew he would understand all that 'it' encompassed, since she was only stating what he already felt. London, his flat, the work, John, his Met contacts, the promise of a new puzzle at regular intervals rather than this long, difficult, exhausting trudge.

She expected him to scoff again but instead he looked away, and though his expression would've been unreadable to almost everyone else, his vulnerability was palpable to her.

"It doesn't matter," he finally said, but the tension in his voice told her how he really felt, and the tightness in her chest constricted further.

Continuing to avoid her eyes, he moved towards the cabinet where the open bottle of wine was resting.

Her mind whirred as she watched the inky red liquid slide against the inside of the glasses and pool at the bottom, but before she had decided how to proceed, he was speaking again.

"There _are_ certain advantages to my extended time outside of England," he said resuming eye contact.

He passed her a glass and then clinked his against it to emphasise his statement.

His tone and expression told her he wasn't just flirting or being flippant; this was him treading very close to something serious and real – and uncharted.

"I can never go back," she said, and a knot formed in her throat.

She hadn't meant to say that, and she took a sip of wine to cover her swallow, though she felt her traitorous eyes prick, though at least no tears came. Had she really been laughing only moments before?

He lowered his glass to glance from her face down to her dress, and his expression became unnerving in its understanding. Though she had become increasingly willing to show him vulnerabilities that she had always concealed, he still had the ability to make her feel as if the flesh of her chest and the curved bones of her ribs were exposed, like she really _were_ the cadaver that had once rested on his pathologist's table, the organ of her heart laid bare under bright halogen lights for his inspection.

The only consolation was that she knew she had the power to make him feel the same way – they were equally invested, equally at risk. It was the emotional equivalent of holding loaded guns to one another's hearts, and although these were all violent images, they felt appropriate.

"I've thought about that," he said, his tone still more subdued, and softer than she'd heard it in ages – perhaps since Karachi. "That night. And I… I didn't—"

"_Sh_," she said, pressing a finger to his mouth. She didn't want to go down this path; not only was it in the past, but she preferred not to dwell on either her failings or the pain of their mutual betrayals. That had been the night they had both pulled the triggers, and though they had managed to cultivate something between them since then, they would always bear those scars.

He wrapped his hand around her wrist, but this time it wasn't some meaningful gesture, it was to gently pull her hand away.

"Irene," he persevered, and the way he said her name took her aback and made her heart pound. She had never come across Sherlock in such an introspective, brooding mood, and it both touched and alarmed her.

"I have an objective, and if I accomplish it I can go back, but inversely if I don't…" His mouth tightened. "It's given me some insight into your situation. Because at least _I_ can be proactive about—"

"Don't," she interrupted, pulling her wrist from his light grip and feeling a flash of hurt and anger. "_Spare_ me your pity."

"I don't pity you," he said sharply, as if insulted by the suggestion he would. "I only wanted to…"

"_Stop_ it," she barked, and now she sounded like Irene Adler as well as looked like her.

Sherlock pressed his lips together, though his eyes flashed in defiance.

Irene felt disoriented and unhappy, and a bit resentful for that. These interludes had always been a respite from her present reality; it was only Sherlock, her, their minds, their sentiment, their intimacy, and nothing else. She valued these liaisons more than she cared to admit, but she also knew that they were finite in number as Sherlock made inevitable progress through his work. She didn't need a reminder that they would soon be parted by exigent, intractable circumstances, and her pride couldn't tolerate the implication that she was being left behind.

"I'll rephrase," Sherlock said, not able to let it go. "I understand all too well how someone like you would need to be proactive. When I'm done here my brother will _owe_ me. I'll tell him about you, and how you've been an invaluable asset in our work with Moriarty, convince him to commute—"

"No, you won't," she said flatly.

Such a thing could not happen, for so many reasons. She knew his intentions were both altruistic and indicative of his own desire to have her close, but that made it all the worse and more painful. She had worked very hard to accept her life as it now was, _had_ to be, but that acceptance was tenuous to the extreme. Giving any consideration to what she wanted but could not realistically have would destroy it.

"It's impossible. No one, not even Mycroft Holmes, is powerful enough to call off the forces that I unleashed on myself," she said, a touch of ice and even pride in her voice. "You and I have agreed that higher risk equals higher reward, but it also can mean much direr consequences. That's the gamble I took. _I_ took," she repeated with emphasis—not to reassure him, but to stress her own agency and role in everything that had happened.

She would not be party to some perceived guilt complex, and she refused to let him see her as anything remotely related to a damsel in distress. Such a thing would be cancer for their relationship; there must always be absolute parity between them, perhaps even a slight edge in her favour. As appreciative as she had been for his unasked-for rescue, and as confident as she was that it was the direct result of her effect on him, part of her still bristled at the inaccurate narrative it could imply. She certainly could not allow it to set any sort of precedent.

_If_ she ever detected that the threats against her had subsided enough for her to consider going back, then she would negotiate with Mycroft Holmes directly. Any future return would have to be on her terms – without the benefit of a favoured younger brother as advocate.

But she couldn't contemplate such a thing any time soon, and maybe she never could.

Sherlock cast his eyes downward, and gave a short nod of understanding and acceptance, though she still felt unsettled.

He must have sensed it, because he pulled his lips between his teeth then said, "I haven't only been playing, I've been composing. I find that when I channel my focus onto that then other things resolve into clarity as if on their own, like," he hesitated, "seeing something out of the corner of your eye more clearly than if you look at it directly.

"And I've had a lot on my mind," he went on in a low voice, and she deciphered the many levels of meaning to that statement, and it set her heart pounding once more. "But this is the first access I've had to a violin."

"Play for me," she said, and she couldn't help the avidness that made her sound breathless.

Ever since hearing Sherlock pluck away at his own violin as he'd sat before her in his flat, present but absent, she had been dying to hear him really play, to watch those long, fine-boned fingers fly over the strings with surety and grace as his taut chest and arms supported the instrument and wielded the bow. It was a bit hypocritical since she also had a musical side to her that she hadn't yet shared, but she was selfishly eager to see him give into something so distinctly sensuous.

He eyed her for a moment, then gave a short nod, and turned in a swift motion. He lifted up the violin and looked down at it for a moment, and Irene wondered if he was going to change his mind. But before she could encourage him, he raised it to his shoulder, closed his eyes lightly, and began to play.

She stood for a while, but as she became more engrossed in the sight of him she settled onto the bed, kicking off her shoes and leaning forward against the chipped iron footboard.

At her movement he opened his eyes and turned towards her, looking her in the eye as he continued.

She wasn't certain for how long she was held captive by his piercing gaze and the sound of the notes that were in turn agitated and restive and plaintive and heartbreakingly sweet, yet always supported by a coherence that Irene recognised at once as Sherlock's signature. He was as talented as she'd always thought he'd be, and so when he suddenly dropped the violin and bow to his sides she felt as if she had been snapped out of a trance.

The penetrating quality of his stare didn't break though, as he set the instrument aside and moved towards her with clear purpose. She thought he was going to kiss her again and she reached out to him, and he entwined his fingers with hers, but without slowing he stepped onto the bed with one upward lunge, and pulled her to her feet and then up again into his arms. She raised her face to his and her lips tingled with heat as if she could already feel his mouth on hers, but still he didn't close the distance between them.

He did something she found even more startlingly intimate. He put his arm around her lower back and drew her close to him, then broke eye contact to entwine his left hand with her right.

He didn't quite meet her eyes again, as if he sensed her bemusement and uncertainty, but there was a determined set to his mouth.

He leaned in toward her and tilted his head so that his mouth was against her ear, and she was back in that wood-panelled manor room, hearing the pronouncement of a death sentence coming from the very lips that had come to feature in her fantasies. How very far they had come since then, and yet there was still so much unexplored territory still before them…

"Do you recall the melody," he said low into her ear.

Without waiting for her response he hummed the first bar in a baritone that lifted the hairs on her arms and sent a pulse of attraction to her core, but then to her astonishment he started to move with her on top of the bed in what was unmistakably a kind of dancing.

After her initial disbelief wore off she allowed him to sway her along with him, but her mind still raced at this uncharacteristic behaviour, and what it meant. Her first reaction was to rebel at it; this was too saccharine, to stereotypically romantic, to suit them.

Another part of her was ready to accept and even savour this unprecedented development. Only hadn't she just been thinking how much potential there was still left to explore between them? Moreover, 'romance' wasn't a singular concept with fixed (clichéd) attributes; in reality it had as much variance as there were people in the world. She'd had clients who had fallen in love with her cruellest persona; for them getting trussed up was a candlelit dinner and being verbally humiliated was a bouquet of long-stemmed roses. It wasn't only the gratification of their _sexual_ fantasies that kept them returning to her time and time again...

She decided that what made this genuinely romantic, and not just an awkward attempt at it by an inexperienced person, wasn't the slow dancing itself, although she was certainly enjoying the intimacy and physical closeness of it.

It was that somehow this cliché was authentic and romantic in _spite_ of itself, and that corresponded with why she had come tonight. She and Sherlock could share with each other both their powerful selves as well as their most vulnerable, simultaneously and without contradiction, and without fear of judgment or misunderstanding.

In this private universe that they had created together, nothing was ordinary – everything was extraordinary by virtue of being shared between the two of them.

But still, she had never seen him like this, not even in their last hours together after Karachi. He was so brittle, his sentiment and other emotions so close to the surface, and so what should've been a moment of luxuriating in this new development was tainted by dread. Missing London didn't fully explain this, and she couldn't help but think that this was related to her, to them, somehow.

She stilled and looked up at him to ask him, but when she saw the look in his eye she stopped herself, and something in his face and body unclenched after a moment.

He needed escape and respite from his present reality as much as she did, and she'd give him that. She would have her explanations, but they could wait.

She let her head loll back a little and gave him a small smile accompanied by a raised eyebrow, and his hold on her tightened, but he didn't smile back.

"Happy Christmas," he said, his voice solemn and subdued.

* * *

**To be continued...**

**The way Irene creates intentional clues for Sherlock about where she's been is the precursor to the game they play in my fic After Midnight. It develops into more of a 'thing' than it is at this point in their relationship, since this takes place during the Great Hiatus and just over a year before After Midnight. This story is not just in the same universe as that one, but is actually a prequel. So if you've read that one you might know what's coming ;) If not or if you don't remember it, please be aware that there will be spoilers for this story if you read it.**

**Comments and reviews are dearly loved!**


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